HEALTH-CARE IN AMERICA

Around my kitchen table for the topic of healthcare the air gets somewhat 'hot'...And rightly so, but not a good idea for the blood pressures of my aging 65+ neighbors - even though we have healthcare.

And before I tell you about the amazingly positive experiences I have known [firsthand] with healthcare provided in four other countries [Mexico, Canada, Cyprus and France] I will tell you that America has a healthcare plan already in place. 

 

Surprised?  I was too after I read Peter G. Peterson's book [1st edition 2002] "RUNNING ON EMPTY".  Then, after my astonishment wore off, I was furious...

 

From Chapter 9 - titled, 'Move Toward Managed Competition' - page 208 [you may want to sit down for this] Quote: The Federal government knows how to operate an efficient health care system and it knows how to do so without forcing everyone into HMOs.

 

[Since 1959!] The Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan [FEHBP] provides federal employees and retirees, including members of Congress, with a benefit package that preserves consumer choice, holds down costs, and promotes quality care. Beneficiaries get to choose from among a wide range of competing plans offered by private insurers. These range from traditional high-cost "fee-for-service" plans in which patients get to see any doctor or specialist they like to low cost HMOs. All these plans compete for customers on both price and quality, which is their biggest advantage over Medicare's monopoly position.  Unquote. [For the shock of this, I can't give you oxygen - just take slow deep breaths!]

Sooo - with the FEHBP in place and functioning for 54 years prior to Obama's cumbersome 'Affordable Healthcare Act' - one wants to ask WHY wasn't the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan simply renamed then expanded to include the rest of the country? You know, to the people who pay taxes? Why reinvent a more complicated 'wheel'?  [Answer: besides a lucrative legal and software contract - others made out financially too! Others except, WeThePeople.] 

However, since Trump was so critical of Obama's 'Affordable Healthcare' plan then why didn't he correct this major oversight?  DJT had to have known about the Federal [Employees] Health Benefit Plan...?

Moving on...With some tweaking - everyone with a valid Social Security number and/or a legal Green Card would automatically get a Federal Health Benefit card. For basic coverage [say for a single person] there could be a minimum of $25 added to your Social Security deduction that every employer matches even if you work part time. For the self employed it could be a percentage of your annual income divided by 12 - or something. I'll let the bean-counters handle the details - I'm only a writer. But by expanding the FEHBP every citizen paying into SS would be covered.

And - requiring 100% participation makes this plan no more unconstitutional than filing a tax return - or why states require everyone who drives a car to have liability insurance - or why all roads and highways have speed limits to follow etc... 

In 1990 America ranked 6th in the world for healthcare, but in 2019 America ranked 27th [curiously the same drop occurred with our education ranking too]. 

 

Anyway, America has the most expensive healthcare system of any industrialized nation on the planet - it's a circus fueled by three main problems: trash, litigation and profit.

 

Trash...Hospital and clinic cleanliness has suffered, becoming chronic because medical staff rely heavily on [throwaway] single use prepackaged items. Many instruments and supplies like gowns, blood pressure cuffs, syringes etc...can be designed to reuse;

Litigation...America is the only developed country that allows burdensome litigation to add a higher cost to all treatments that does not benefit any patient, but actually drains resources away from serious medical conditions. If litigation wasn't factored into the 'billing' of every aspect in our medical system we could cut costs 70%.

Profit...And - only in America do citizens need to fear filing for bankruptcy or risk the loss of their homes or loss of insurance due to the high 'markup' for all procedures. Other countries don't run their medical systems entirely 'for-profit'. Treatments are provided at cost and are the same cost from region to region.

...While visiting relatives in Alberta, Canada my husband [who had two heart stents] felt a tightness in his chest and believed he was experiencing another blockage. We were in Calgary which is five hours or 320 miles to the nearest U.S. hospital in Great falls, Montana. We decided to head for the cardiac unit in the Foothills Hospital in Calgary, only five miles away - expecting that under the circumstances, Medicare would certainly cover this situation. We were met by the resident cardiologist on staff and Hubby was treated immediately, while I tried to work with Medicare [long distance]. Over the course of five hours of tests, monitoring and observation Hubby had two X-rays, two MRIs, a blood draw each hour and the cardiologist checked it all. 

 

Meanwhile back at the admissions office I spoke to a Medicare specialist who argued we should have driven to the nearest U.S. hospital therefore Medicare couldn't guarantee any payments directly to the [foreign] Canadian hospital or our reimbursement. When I asked if the specialist had a map or knew how far the 'nearest' U.S. hospital was - she claimed it was 'policy'.

By late afternoon, the cardiologist declared Hubby cleared for release. What the doctor concluded was acute dehydration also causing indigestion. Regardless, the cost to spring Hubby totaled $1,618.56 CDN - which when factored into the monetary exchange rate came to just over $900+USD on our VISA!  I could hardly believe it. After we returned home our claim to Medicare was turned down twice. But curious, I discovered that had we made the drive to the Great Falls hospital the same five hours and test procedures and cardiologist would have cost Medicare just over $8,000+ in U.S. dollars!

 

...A cousin vacationing in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico developed an ear infection. She went to a local clinic where she paid $25.00 CDN to see a general practitioner. When the doctor saw her, he thought she should see a specialist. She paid the ear, nose and throat specialist $45.00 [which included a follow up visit] who prescribed an antibiotic that cost her $18 and after ten days she went back to see the specialist, feeling fine.

 

...While living on the island of Cyprus for a couple of years my mother came to visit and she developed pneumonia. I took my mother to the local hospital where they referred us to a local doctor's clinic. The doctor took my mother's chest X-ray personally then prescribed two medications and sent her home for bed rest. Together, the clinic visit and X-ray was $65.00. Both prescriptions totaled $21.00 and the doctor made two house calls during the ten-day course of my mother's recovery. After bed rest and medication a second X-ray showed mother's lungs clear. The second clinic visit with X-ray was another $65.00.

 

...My daughter was a Rotary Exchange Student in France for a year and while there she caught a nasty European flu virus. I was beside myself with worry, but the French Rotary covered all healthcare issues and one of her host mothers assured me that my daughter would be well looked after - and she was for eight solid days. We never saw any bill after my daughter recovered - fully. 

 

No politician here needs to convince me that America has the 'best' healthcare in the world because I know otherwise...

 

What can WeThePeople do? Well the 2020 election is behind us, but even before our new reps are sworn in [there's still a midterm in two years] all voters need to make themselves heard! Write - call - email - then write and call and email again and again and again.

 

There IS a functioning health plan in place that can be expanded to include the entire country. Do your own research and if you're comfortable let your feelings be known to your elected representative, regardless if you voted for them or not. It's time - it has been time for decades - long overdue. America needs to catch up to the rest of Planet Earth - because we are far behind 'that' curve too... 

 

https://medium.com/@BraveNewFilms.org/heres-how-to-contact-all-535-members-of-united-states-congress-call-email-tweet-20b8a1c54195

 

*Sherrie Todd-Beshore is a mystery suspense novelist and former journalist... 

 

Via amazon.com or patchworkpublishing.com

Romantic Mystery-Suspense: "Fine Points Malice And Payback"